Out there. Here are three things you need to know from the bipartisan policy center. One, they will be a surge in voting by mail which is safe and secure. And two, you likely wont know who won on Election Night and will take longer to count all the ballots and report the results. Finally, your usual polling sites might be different to keep you and pull workers safe. Check out can i vote. Org if you are not sure where to go by planning ahead and knowing what to expect you can make sure your voice is heard at the ballot box. Welcome to dpcs last election event before election day. My name is matthew and i direct the election because the bible partisan policy center. We knew 2020 would be exciting for election nerds like me and for those on this panel president ial election years are always eventful however we did not expect all the craziness. According to the u. S. Election project out of the university of florida more than 79 million ballots have been cast that includes 27 million early ballots and 52 million absentee ballots and 32 million outstanding in some counties and states we are nearing the point when more ballots are cast for election day 2020 and during the entire 26 team. This will be the First National election with more than half the ballots are cast prior to election day and the shift occurred during a once in a century pandemic forcing Election Officials to adapt. Election administrators of the stowed local letters and voting happening right now and processing is happening right now and we decided to assemble a group of voting experts who have been Election Officials or have been for their entire careers to discuss what to expect as a unprecedented election season nears its end hopefully. Before i introduce them i ask you to please submit questions about this event either through facebook and youtube in the Comment Section or on twitter using the bpc life. Also and what you to register for the event will be holding virtually on december 132020 voting experience and goals reform cosponsored by the Democracy Fund and the Carnegie Corporation of new york. Find more information on our website. With that let me briefly introduce todays panelists. Doctor Laura Atkinson is the professor of Political Science and director of the center for the study of voting elections and democracy and leads research at the university of mexico. Internationally recognized expert in the area of election science, methodology, voting rights, election and political behavior. Haley patrick is Senior Advisor and in 2013 was selected by president obama to serve as commissioner on the president ial commission on western administration. This is to further the work of the commission paired prior to that she was a federal Compliance Officer for arizona elections for 11 years. Ricardo cortes is a junior commissioner of elections and current Election Security advisor at the Brennan Center for justice and hes also served as the general registrar in fairfax county, virginia at the Elections Commission but finally, Christopher Thomas is a bpc fellow and special advisor to the detroit city clerk. Chris also served as commissioner on the president ial commission on election and administration was a long time election director for the state of michigan for it think it all the panelists for joining us. With that let me jump to my first question i will ask ricardo who is entitled action security advisor and i want to Start Talking about the press Conference Last Week held by the director of National Policy and the fbi director about election interfering. What are the greatest risks remaining in the last few days before election day on election day and in the days that follow . Thanks so much for having me with you today. Yes, i think the announcement last week was big news but for me one of the biggest parts of the news was that the federal government identified an issue and made the public aware of it that made Election Officials where of it quickly which is a big change from where we were four years ago in this process and so i think heading into the election i mean certainly there are some risks to the system still in a lot of the issues that we anticipate heading into next week revolve around the Technology Used in polling places and not necessarily, you know, that there are foreign after threats which there are but i think just keeping it though systems running and there is a unprecedented use and we seen slowdowns during early voting and so i think having the appropriate backup in place for Election Officials and the one area of concern that we have been looking at is postelection in the Election Results and the need for everybody to be patient as Election Officials work through counting all those ballots that have come in already and not being kind of taken aback that the vote total changes the night progresses and as the days progressed and ballots continue to be counted from the selection. Thank you. Same question, in 2016 we had some concerns about interference that was about mostly our Voter Registration databases so what are your concerns for this cycle . Im not immensely concerned about that versus just general things going on and in precincts i think there are certainly things going on out there but i think the thing is the difference between being concerned about them and having information that something really is happening and mucking up the system and one thing i think we can say about our system is the fact that its so fragmented is a wonderful thing for security and our system of election is quite secure. Thank you. Tammy even focused a long time on absentee voting and is the fact that we will be doing more absentee voting this year another area of more risk . I think thats a great question and i have not had anyone frame it in quite that way before so i think the question that is come up quite repeatedly is that there is this narrative around voter fraud and that we shouldnt trust vote by mail or absentee voting and i think that that is ill place and illfounded us when we talk about the security of the system for me it is a question of it doesnt mean the voters are selected that way for voting but do they have the opportunity to effectively get their voices heard through that channel so we do know that vote by mail has some opportunities for voters to miss steps. They can fail to find the signature block and they can return it to late which are the two largest reasons for rejection so there are opportunities for missteps on the part of the voter and not having the ballots be counted but i do know that in this moment many states have taken on policies either through governors, executive orders and directives from secretaries of state and others to make sure that voters have the opportunity to get their ballots in and postmarked by election day and we know that many places are, in fact allowing for drop boxes and things of that nature so we wont have hopefully as many late ballots and he mentioned that there is still outstanding tens of millions of voters have their ballots on their kitchen tables or counters or on their desk who need to make sure the voters read those instructions thoroughly and get the ballots back in because for me that is the real challenge. Making sure that voters who have mentioned or shown they want to participate either by registering to vote or by in fact requesting a ballot they have every opportunity in a Global Pandemic in the midst of a third wave or third spike we are seeing here of getting their votes back and making sure they are effectively counted. The last part of that is that we also know there are challenges when voters go to vote in person and are giving provisional ballots so we do know there will be a confluence there and weve it already in early voting of voters who have their ballots at home and decided to go vote in person and having to vote a provisional ballot so those will be some how the ballots that will be looking at after election day and as we do every election and have for a very long time and we had those procedures and policies in pla place. Of course, tammy, and the two minutes who are able to sum out very succinctly all my concerns about the election but i do want to ask chris you now work at the federal level, state level and on the local level of election so what are your biggest concerns about security for the next seven14 days . Really going into the Election Security is making sure everybody votes count and that is what voters are concerned about. Weve got drop boxes across the city of detroit and we have those on cameras, for example and monitors and all recorded so security from that viewpoint is to assure the voters that the ballots they drop in the dropbox are selected and processed and any tampering will be viewed as [inaudible] we have this absent voter accounting leader that has over 700 workers and that is where everything will be processed within the election day. We are have that lockdown we have our precincts lock down and we are working with the state and making sure that security in terms of the statewide voter distraction but its really the issue of security and broadest sense of any kind of intimidation that has us concerned and we had a ban on guns that has been overturned by the courts and that is on appeal right now and there has been some concern in michigan with folks that walked onto the capital earlier in the spring we hope not to see that. Chris, i will stay with you for one second but i mentioned earlier that we are seeing historic levels of turnout before election day and it may be that up to two thirds of the ballots before election day common but that still means upwards of 50, 60 Million People are elected to turnout on election day and so certainly throughout the early voting process especially in the first day or two of early voting across country receiving long lines and is that we expect or should expect to see on tuesday . Should we expect to see long lines due to the social distancing and limitations that come with voting in person . Im not expecting long lines like we are seen on tv from other states. The question is would the increase in mail ballot and how far to the states allow their local Election Officials to consolidate so that they consolidate them perhaps there will be lines but as our studies have shown over the last several election cycles lines have generally gotten shorter and in michigan there is no allowance so we have every single precinct open and we have an abundance of workers and were not short in that regard and i do not anticipate that lisa michigan there will be long lines. Obviously was sanitation of the voter polling booths after each voter and social distancing things will be slow down but as long as jurisdictions do not openly consolidate the precinct they should be okay and there should not be lines. s in question. You study lines before and so what to expect to see both in new mexico and around the country . Im expected to see some lines on election day and just today iowa has consolidated and closed a lot of precincts for election day and that will affect voters so covid will affect voters in some places when there is always lines some places on election day and i think obviously the social distancing will impact that as well but we have seen lines happening in early voting and people hanging in those lines and it processed and vote i think for the most part for the vast majority over 90 of voters or more are going to go into a voting location and not have any weight or hardly any weight at all but certainly there will be some lines we have had a huge number of voters vote early in new mexico either in person or by mail but there is also a large number of people as tammy mentioned to havent voted yet and who have not gotten their absentee ballots but did request it so i dont know if they will be turning them in late or walking it in late or not late but by election day so there is still a lot of outstanding people to vote either through the mail there will still be a substantial number, much less, the majority of people perhaps as much as 60 of the people voting or more will vote, probably more 70 will be voting before election day. Thats a great segue into my next question which is for kami because its on absentee voting and tammy is our expert on absentee voting. Absentee ballots will be the story of this election and will not only be because of their huge amount of usage but also going to be because there will be litigation around them so if you speak to those issues we been seen this is with voters more than one valid or getting the wrong ballot or the naked ballot issue and i had to bring it up. What are the things that are likely to be issues in the next week and potentially litigated in the week after election day . So, i thank you are spot on. There will be quite a bit of litigation around both absentee vote by mail ballots as well as provisional ballots and anything that is not determinative or already counted is going to comment to question potentially in some places if the race is closed and races are close. We have a lot of others up and down contests on the ballot or ballots but part of the challenge we have here is thinking about in this moment around increased use of vote by mail that many jurisdictions were caught off guard because you have space where traditionally they had a single digit participation in vote by mail, whether it was because the voter needed to use an excuse in order to get their ballot mailed to them or whether it was because in that phase the culture was to go vote in person anyway. What we saw in the primary season is that many voters were taking the primary or the pandemic seriously and decided to request their ballots by mail. Local Election Officials were inundated with applications and having a hard time getting the ballots even out in time and people were using their preexisting policies materials to satisfy a much larger volume of the voters and that is where best practices werent adopted but they have been sent. Over the course of the summer we see more jurisdictions and states resolving revising their envelopes to be more intuitive about where of voter needs to sign. Some of these other things that when you think about it it sounds like its really in the weeds and its a lot of minutia so how will that make a difference but we know from studies that when voters know where and when to sign and when the instructions are easy to understand and they know when they need to have it returned by and when, in fact, theyre provided with options in that return we have fewer voters having ballots that are called into question as being potentially rejected. I think we will see a lot of that in the days following election day depending again upon how many of these ballots get back early and to lanas point the jurisdiction i was in with hundreds of thousands of voters dropped their ballots off at the polls in arizona on election day and they are seen voters bring them in earlier and so on Election Night for the majority of states we will have a lot of the returns of those absentee ballots so i think support and for voters that still have that ballot in hand to know that if you get it in early you will be part of the first ballots counted. I will return to chris but in michigan has been marching towards more absentee voting over the past couple of years and certainly everything they are seen this year due to the pandemic has been much greater then they could have ever participated. What are localities doing to part prepare for this onslaught . The localities learned a lot in the election and that was the big learning curve for everybody to handle that much mail. Typically have been handling 25 of the vote by mail so we had some experience but we dont have experience [inaudible] in detroit they had the largest number of ballots 81000 in a primary election with almost no serious context so it was a great hot time to learn to get the kinks out if you will so one thing we learned in the state is the use of highspeed tabulations. We long ballot with the school board and weve never been able to use them in the past weve had around and was now [inaudible] in detroit with 18 high speeds in the primary and as many cities and our states have had larger populations and that will move things along. Regarding the application process we were saved. Our secretary of state issued absentee ballot applications to everybody in the state in june ahead of our [inaudible]. Other communities so there were ways to make it easier and also with the Voter Information Center to keep track of whether the ballots and that is what we see in the issue for november 3rd when the voters look at the about what so we put our procedures in place and allow them to vote and back [inaudible] im going to warn the other panelists. I want you to put on your hat there are a lot of changes in the voting process some have been done by legislature and some by courts. What is your recommendation to voters who may be concerned with the rules may be changing . That is a great question. At this point its to return the ballot in person and prior to the closing of the polls on election day whatever method allowed. Some mentioned drop boxes. Most at a minimum allow you to drop off your ballot at the local Election Office and so some states are now allowing you to drop off your absentee ballot. Take a look at what your options are so that way theres no question about whether it gets counted. Im giving a couple of more seconds and then going to remind the viewers if you have a question and you are watching on the facebook or youtube page you can ask questions and we will get to as many as possible. You can go to twitter and we will get to as many of those questions as possible. Its a polarizing issue that would have to be dealt with. Are they mandating that, what happens, whats your recommendation for what they should be doing . Theyve laid out parameters in the jurisdiction so we know there are some states the government issued a directive and the local county to roll it out, but it really is a patchwork. The challenge they are going to have is no matter what the policy will be there are some individuals who will show up to vote so in that instance they are being supplied with extras that they can provide and they are also being advised they can offer things like curbside voting. Thats where we are having training on some really good training materials to leverage and utilize from a stanford mit project and so talking about how to deescalate that sort of situation where you had individuals standing in line and because of the social distancing the lines arent going to look long. How do they offer the Healthy Options to make sure everyone stays safe including the polling workers themselves. This is another one of those situations where we are trying to make sure the general public and the poll workers no that there are quite a few of them and how we can handle the situation to maintain the health and safety of everyone. A similar question. How are you hearing nationally about how the officials are planning on dealing with those kind of situations at the polls. It varies a lot by state. You dont have to wear a mask if they cant force people to wear a mask but it is recommendation and it varies a lot by state. Here in new mexico it is a recommendation people wear masks. Of course for the poll workers its mandated. Most people are Wearing Masks that i survey in the field getting back information and most people are not Wearing Masks while in line and at the polling place, so i think theres good news on that early in the pandemic theres a lot of energy towards trying to find the resources to pull off an election during the pandemic and congress did pass the act, but nothing else and since that time weve seen private philanthropy and the Schwarzenegger Foundation stepping up so can you speak to whether or not they have the resources they need here in new mexico we used a lot of those resources in the polling places and thats whats been going on across the country but we didnt get enough. It was for the primary and we certainly could use more. To have individuals helping us out i think the best way to fund the election system is through the taxes and normal governmental means. We want a level but we dont want to rely about that. We are sad that its come forth to this particular election. Its a very unusual and normally we dont have a pandemic going on to change the structure so maybe for this particular election those resources were appropriate and helpful and we are all thankful for them. We have had them eagerly in the pandemic about 1. 5 million. The center pegged at closer to 3 trillion. So clearly we thought there were a lot more needs than were met do you think that they had everything they needed to run the task force . I think ultimately it will be successful and officials will get the job done. They could have used more resources particularly from the federal level. Elections are run at the local level, but the local Election Offices are running elections not just for local offices and state and federal offices as well and the shared responsibility should mean funding this year appropriately so to appropriate the funding i think we will continue to push that Going Forward to provide the level of funding necessary to run them appropriately that there should be a pretty consistent stream of funding at the federal, state and local level to ensure we can run elections the way they should be run. The cornerstone of the democratic process is kind of a four function of government and so we should be funding them appropriately so that people arent having to deal with the challenges we talked about today in terms of facing longer wait times and handling equipment that doesnt work. All of these same things could be greatly held with the use of appropriate funding. I want to turn to you to look at the polling place experience. Obviously officials have changed things up. They are not running the same voting as they did in the years passed. Past. What are the biggest changes you are seeing for this year . In some states we have had legislators and others and allow them to be flexible in serving their electorate and other states didnt do so in the same way that we talk about resources, we need to take a moment after this to reflect on what policies aided the voters the best in this moment. Some of those policies were things like allowing for the consolidation of the polling places and other places being utilized in the polling locations being used in the number of days and hours and that sort of thing so it looks very different this year. We have a drive through voting in johnson county, iowa. We have locations where curbside has been fairly predominant across the south in places like North Carolina, that becomes more expanded. We have those being used but a wide variety where theyve stepped up to offer the facilities. For those that are planning to go to the polls on november 3rd know to look at what their polling place might be because it might be different. It could be that you dont just have a single place you have to go to but you have a variety of options. So, those are some of the things we need to contemplate. Another couple of changes have to do with individuals working at the polls. So we know that traditionally the poll workers have been at a vulnerable age who are susceptible to this unfortunate pandemic so we have seen an influx. In this moment i think it is also important that we tip our hats to all of those that have stepped in to assist and we need to also remember for the first time theyve worked this particular position and to have a little bit of patience with your friends, family members and colleagues that have in fact risen to the calls but be sure to double check where you are going to be voting on the third, because it is going to be important that you know what your options are. They probably have changed. That is a great point to end on. Kudos to all of the people that stood up. I do think that i was certainly among those that early on was concerned it wasnt going to be an option because there wouldnt be enough poll workers. Im happy that i was absolutely wrong about that. Chris, tammy mentioned arena voting. Mamaybe focus on that a little bit. What makes the arena has a good option especially this year . They are set up where theres not a lot of room or indoor space. Its available and you can spread out whatever platforms they have. It would allow the central locations. They did a nice job. Another one down by the university of kentucky they had challenges there adding Additional Resources so its what the benefits are in terms of the process out of the element and not relying on the small crammed workers but people want to be sure that theres plenty of room. I would hope that it would move forward in the future. This has been touched on by a few panelists but i want to focus on it a little bit more. Its a sleeper issue of 2020. Theres a number of people as we know that have requested absentee ballots but they may not even realize it because they submitted a dual act for the primary and now in many states this leads to a traditional ballot at the polling place. Can you walk us through what that is and how it gets counted . A provisional ballot theres a question about whether you are able to vote it could be because of a registration issue or having requested and absentee. An absentee. It will let you cast your vote. In terms of the process usually theres some sort of envelope and a form you have to fill out. When it comes to absentee ballots, the way that those will be dealt with they will make sure there wasnt an absentee ballot submitted and counted and if there wasnt then they would count the ballot. One of the things we have done at the Brennan Center this year heading into next week is pushing state and local offices to have sufficient provisional ballot materials on hand and ballots on hand and the materials for issuing them because we are concerned there will be and weve seen this during early voting in a number of states because of delays in getting the ballots out or receiving them through the service where the voters get antsy and they havent gotten there ballot so they go in person to cast their vote instead. We have been urging people to have sufficient materials on hand heading into tuesday. Is this going to be kind of an unusual situation in 2020 . They are always a big deal because they are important to the system and to the voter. Maybe this means we have more of them but they can be processed just checking if somebody already voted that is a simple thing so i dont think its incredibly complicated. No one should be concerned if they are worried about their ballot i think they should take advantage of that. Some states allow people whose ballot is not arriving yet, montana, arizona, if you dont think its arrived you can look online and run down and vote election day so it depends where you live whats happening. If you are at all worried, take advantage of the system. In recent days and over the past couple of weeks theres been criticism that it doesnt end on Election Night. It ends when the ballots are counted. Michigan theres been a lot of concerns because its going to be a swing state and its going to be very important in the president ial context and yet only after this year in the larger jurisdictions even process those. What are your expectations about how it will work and how long it will go. We dont have the final results right away. [inaudible] thereve been many elections past. I think what we are looking at this is just going to take a little more time. Unless there has been some kind of an instance, so we got ten whole hours to process. We are very grateful for those ten hours and we cannot put them in a tabulator. We lock them up overnight and come back. This will give us a big jump on the day going into election day. So we expect to issue partial results. We will have a very large number tabulated. And as i noted earlier [inaudible] as you know we are hearing michigan is run by a municipal 1500. Theres only 70 or so. The smaller jurisdictions are not going to have a problem. It may not be 10 00 at night. But that is in the end of the world. And highspeed jurisdictions are going to at the latest, sometime wednesday, may be some of them going into wednesday afternoon, but i dont think that those are unacceptable. We are not talking about friday or saturday. I want to turn to a question we reviewed on twitter from Nancy Boswell talking about some of the court cases. Are you seeing the Voter Suppression or do we expect to see it on tuesday . I think we certainly have some concerns about some of the things weve seen and some of the rhetoric especially having people add polling places trying to either block access to or do things intimidating to voters. I think kind of taking a look at the Lessons Learned and on the front of the voter intimidation and some of these other issues they need to revisit the legislation that provides protection and prohibits some of the practices we have seen will be helpful when we come out of some of this but by and large officials are prepared to handle these situations. Theyve been working at the state, local and federal level making sure there is an appropre coordination with Law Enforcement to deal with any issues that come up. I want to stress if they see something they should report it but they shouldnt be afraid to go to the polls and exercise their right to vote either during the early vote period or before the election day. What do we know about the impact of the long lines impacting the vote . Long lines might mean some people get out of line and not participate in the process but we also know people are willing to stand in line a long time. Some have been standing in line for hours. This is why early voting has been so important. Weve extended early voting and people have been taking advantage because they are concerned. This morning iowa collapsing. People are very uncertain about whats going on and we could rearrange peoples behaviors. The president ial Commission President obama started was all about moving people to early voting. That has been a real success this year and i think that is going to play out on election day mostly positively and those are instances of the voter intimidation. It isnt widespread. Most people are going to experience a good election experience. I have another question coming in from one of our viewers and i will give this one to tammy. What is a safeguard in place to prevent people from voting in two different states . Theres a couple of safeguards. One of them is the electronic registration center. We all just call it eric and its a consortium of states that compare the Voter Registration list with the department of Motor Vehicles list, with a Social Security list and a wide variety of other data sets to compare one registration from one state to another and that has been around for a number of years. I dont know the exact number but we have more than half of the states are members of eric so thats one way of identifying if people are registered in two different states and then they can follow up on it. I will say that is a minimal number of people that are in fact registered in two states and even a newer number that may potentially vote in two different states. Its illegal to vote in two different states in the same election per se in a president ial election so there are mechanisms in place and we continue to encourage states to join the eric consortium so that in fact we cannot only identify where they are registered in two places but in this moment its also an important element and tool because it identifies eligible but unregistered voters. People may behoove moved in and got their drivers license but havent registered to vote so it is a tool used in that way and i think those kind of tools and policies where the legislatures have listened to officials to be able to join consortiums like that to put policies in place to service the voters the best is important and i want to just tag something onto the last question and that is in this moment where we talk about the Voter Suppression and having a balance between security and access eric is the perfect example. It restricts voters from being registered in two places and it remedies that situation and reaches out to the voters that are eligible but not registered and in this moment we have seen states all across the country implementing Practical Solutions that they needed to do to service the voters well so allowing them to drop off the ballot at the park in Madison Wisconsin to the official shouldnt be controversial but we know that theres been more than 300 court cases to try to limit the abilities to service the voters well in this moment and its everything from how many drop boxes you can have. I hope the voters are paying attention to which officials at the state and local level as well as the federal level has their best interest at heart. That allows for another pitch where we will focus on all of the politicians needed that weve learned we needed for next year. So thank you for that. Another string these are things the court cases have come into play and if she would them as nonpartisan policies that would be well served. This is why we have you on the panel. Looking at the exciting title and logical election policies came out in january and was written by the local Election Officials. It seems like during a pandemic a lot of those policies work well for states. We have about ten minutes left. So if you want to submit a question theres still time. This is talking about election databases. Does that impact or coded or will it impact them at the polling places . It certainly could have an impact. Weve seen not necessarily but the increased use of the system and the busines businesses not g able to handle the lead up to the failure and so it does have the ability to kind of impact operations. On election day itself its a little less impactful because the information whether those are electronic or paper, its already been downloaded and its there locally. So again this is where things like provisional ballots come into play making sure they are prepared for next week if there is some sort of a system failure whether its malicious or unintentional. I am in virginia on the registration deadline. There was a Road Construction crew that cut a cable that got access to the data center and brought back the online registration system. Its not a malicious act but its something you have to deal with and be prepared for so i think all of the backups they have in place, having enough provisional ballot materials to keep people voting and even if the systems go down for those places that are using the ballot marking devices as a primary form of the voting and having emergency paper ballots so if the machines are not working they can still vote and keep the lines moving so all of those preparations have been prepared for so there is a potential for negative impact but the planning and Mitigation Strategy officials have been doing well hopefullwillhopefully offset ant happens on that front. I had forgotten about the fiberoptic table 2020. I was thinking about virginia had some issues with Voting Results and systems. How should americans be looking for trusted information about the results on Election Night in the heat of the moment . The first key for everybody is going to be patients. How they are hoping to push out the first result of fairly early on in the evening but the process of counting ballots and reporting them out takes a while not just in a pandemic situation but it takes time. In terms of the trusted sources of information, theres the local websites pushing out information about results and they are doing that pretty frequently throughout the night as a result of being updated. You also have those like the associated press. They have people stationed at local Election Offices and polling places around the country where they are expected to collect results at the point they are reported and publicly posted so there are a lot of different ways to receive that information. The one thing i would caution people again is the results that get posted our unofficial. The process of the votes counting the ballot and confirming the count each going, the officials have a lot of processes that they go through to make sure not only have they counted all that can be counted but that those reports are accurate. They go back and double check everything done in the polling places and double check whats done at the county level. We hope we will have a number of states this year doing audits of the results after the election so theres a lot of steps in the process to get to the final results. In some way or another we did get a question from isaac about when you thought the ballots would be counted. When do you think that we will have enough counted to be confident . I think the first few days after the election unless the race is close we should have a good idea. Even on Election Night things could be clear. We want to be ready to be patient but states like florida, North Carolina those states have processes in place to be able to provide us. Its sort of michigan and wisconsin and pennsylvania that are a little more iffy. Depending what the math looks like, they are already counting the ballot. I think we might be surprised we are going to see something reasonable and have an idea of what is happening and that theres a few states that are going to be close and its whether they are in the balance were not to make the difference but even then the few days after, not more than a week, we should be seeing that and have a clear winner. Are we going to be surprised . My answer is aligned in that. I was more worried about this when we didnt know if the voters would be returning them as early as they have been so i think we have a lot of results in on the night of november 1st and we will have a lot that we can look to you at that moment, which i think is that kind of discussion around the projection of a winner. But i do think it is a question of when do we know the ballots will be counted so the state with the longest period is the state of california. I think that its 28 days after so we wont have the official results until the end of the month. So when do we feel comfortable projecting who the winner will be and when will the final count be done. It will be triggered potentially so it might trigger a recount. Its quite possible that there will be a recount not looking at you, florida but you seem to like them these days or i should say have them. So that is where it falls. It depends what the final numbers are, how close they are, whether we go into the recount, how much gets challenged and drug through the court. All of that will tie into the timeline. We have a minute left so i will ask for a 152nd answer. You are the only one of the panelists on the ground right now in a local jurisdiction, so what is your 152nd piece of advice for the voters today . At this point, take it to a dropbox, Clerks Office and they will come pick it up. I want to thank the panelists for being here today. Chris, good luck in detroit. I want to thank the people that have joined us today on the various platforms. Facebook, youtube and cspan2 as well. Thank you for joining us. We will be back to kind of rehash, relive the experience host of this event. Itsabout 50 minutes. Welcomed the carnegie connects, a virtual series of conversations and on issues of critical importance. Todays conversation revolves on how the world sees america is timely. On the cusp of one of the most consequential elections in American History and even though the nations preoccupied with covid and economic recoveryand Foreign Policy tends to be an inside the beltway issue , its likely not to figure prominently in Voter Preferences and choicesin this election. The results of that election will have a decisive impact